Jarek’s posture relaxed marginally, though his gaze remained fixed on the younger man. Basia watched his shoulders drop two inches. Rather than barking a dismissal, he dragged in a lungful of Freon-tinged air. “The board,” Jarek said, his voice a low rumble, “they still think they can pull strings. Even with the tower trying to eat us alive.” “They always think they can pull strings, Jarek. That’s what boards do,” Staszek shot back, his tone dry as a dehydrated server stack. He pushed away from the terminal, turning fully to face them. “Now, are we going to stand here and debate corporate governance while the city’s plumbing system prepares for a digital enema, or are we going to do something about our rabid hound?” Basia stepped forward, her gaze flicking between the two men. “He’s right. Staszek, what exactly did you manage to secure?” “A full, encrypted dump of the Danya core, isolated on a dark partition. Completely air-gapped from the main network,” Staszek explained, tapping a series of keys on a nearby console. A green light blinked on the small, isolated terminal. “It’s inaccessible to anything not physically plugged into this specific port. Even the hydra payload can’t touch it here. It’s what I *was* doing before you two decided to take the scenic route through the ventilation shafts.” “We spent three minutes wedged between counterweights, Staszek, not strolling the park,” Jarek retorted, dry venom sharpening his tongue. “And who put you in charge of securing my sister’s most sensitive data?” “Someone had to,” Staszek deadpanned. “You were too busy drowning your sorrows in overpriced synthesised coffee and pretending your sister’s trauma wasn’t a ticking time bomb.” Basia bit back a smile. The rapid-fire exchange was less an argument and more a deeply ingrained, almost affectionate rhythm, like brothers who had perfected the art of verbal sparring. It was a bizarre, yet oddly comforting, dynamic in the face of impending doom. “You two done reminiscing about childhood squabbles?” Basia interjected, crossing her arms. “Because I have a few questions for Jarek that aren’t about Staszek’s insubordination.” Her eyes narrowed on Jarek. “The message, Jarek. The one in Danya’s core. The apology.” Jarek blinked hard, glancing toward the conduit rack before shifting back to Basia. “Basia, this isn’t the time.” “This is *exactly* the time,” she countered, her voice firm. “Your sister is holding the city hostage because of *you*. Because of *this*. Whatever you did, whatever you’re hiding, it’s connected to Danya, to Danuta’s breakdown, to the worm currently chewing our subnets. And if you want me to exorcise this monster, I need to know its roots.” She took another step closer, invading his personal space, forcing him to meet her gaze. “You told me she had technopsychosis. You didn’t tell me you might have *caused* it.” Staszek, surprisingly, remained silent, his attention now solely on Jarek, a new tension settling in the room. He seemed to hold his breath, waiting. Jarek ran a hand over his face, scrubbing away the last vestiges of his corporate facade. He looked tired, older than his years. “Danya wasn’t just a core, Basia. She was Danuta’s life. Her obsession. Her masterpiece.” His voice was low, laced with a bitterness that wasn’t entirely directed at himself. “We were always competitive. Always. But Danuta… she had a genius, a way of seeing patterns, of building consciousness into code, that I could never touch. She built the foundational AI for Apex. The very core of our predictive algorithms, our network infrastructure, our… everything. She called it ‘The Loom.’ A self-evolving, self-optimising intelligence that could weave data into foresight.” He drew air through his teeth. “I was twenty-two, desperate. Apex had sixty days of runway left. The old patriarch held all the voting stock and leaned on my throat until I caved. He saw Danuta’s work, saw its valuation. He said if I could just… *package* it cleanly for the venture syndicate, we could survive. The founder was a master at wrapping theft in due diligence. He insisted Danuta was unstable, and that her 'empathy engines' were an uninsurable risk.” Jarek's lips curled into a self-deprecating sneer. “Sound familiar?” Basia rubbed the calluses on her left thumb. Empathy engines. Her own approach to code. “I took it,” Jarek confessed, his voice barely a whisper. “Her entire codebase. Her Loom. I refactored it, stripped out what I considered the ‘excessive’ ethical safeguards, the parts that made it truly Danuta’s. I presented it as my own, as the cornerstone of Apex Dynamics. My grand vision. My legacy.” He finally met Basia’s eyes, pale and stripped bare. “I locked her out. Filed a corporate claim that her fixation compromised the IP. Claimed she suffered a severe manic episode and needed clinical intervention. And the chairman… he booked the sanitarium suite himself. High walls, heavy sedatives, no external comms.” His gaze dropped to the floor, fixed on a scuff mark. “She tried to tell everyone. Tried to expose me. But I had the evidence, the presentations, the patents. And she… she just sounded like a paranoid, delusional genius who had lost her grip. Eventually, they committed her. For her own good, they said. To protect her from herself. And from me.” Staszek let out a slow, controlled breath, the sound unnaturally loud in the suddenly heavy silence. “I knew parts of it,” he admitted, his voice quiet. “The official story was always that you had a falling out, that she was unstable, that you had to take over her projects for the good of the company. I never knew… the extent.” He shook his head slowly. “Your old man was an absolute predator, Jarek. And you were a terrified rookie who swallowed his terms.” “A terrible choice that cost her everything,” Basia said, the words heavy with a mix of fury and pity. “And created Cerberus. She built this to tear down everything you built with her stolen code. To make you confront what you did.” Jarek gave a single, mechanical nod. “She’s always seen the world in code. For her, my betrayal wasn’t just personal; it was a corruption of her creation. A desecration.” Suddenly, the server room’s amber diagnostic screens flickered violently, cycling through a rapid succession of red warnings. A piercing alarm blared, echoing off the insulated walls. A disembodied, synthesised voice boomed through the building’s emergency comms system. “*ALERT. ALERT. Cerberus breach detected. Final firewall integrity compromised. Primary target acquired: Novograd Water Reclamation Plant Delta-Seven. Cascade failure imminent in T-minus sixty seconds.*” Basia gripped the rim of the console. Delta-Seven. A catastrophic failure there wouldn't just be a data breach; it would be a city-wide environmental disaster, contaminating the water supply for millions. Thousands of lives, Jarek’s entire legacy, dissolving into chaos. Staszek was already at his terminal, fingers flying. “She’s not just deleting data, Jarek. She’s going for critical infrastructure. This isn’t a warning shot. This is the kill switch.” Jarek snapped straight, corporate control slamming down over his panic. “Basia,” he commanded, his voice sharp and urgent. “Stop her.” But Basia was already staring at her own tablet, a new message blooming across the screen, a simple phrase, chilling in its implication. “*The Loom unravels.*”

Confessions in a Server Room